February 2023

Couple plied teenager with drugs and alcohol and forced her into prostitution

A “degenerate” couple plied a teenage girl with drugs and alcohol before forcing her into child prostitution and using indecent images of her for an online profile.

They groomed their vulnerable victim who was forced to sleep with a number of men over three weeks for money which they pocketed.

Richard Mountstephens, 34, and Kelly Thomas, 32, of Cardiff, began their abuse of the victim by taking her to the Celtic Manor on her birthday and told her she “could expect a good life” through prostitution.

They had sexual activity with the child and took photos of her which they uploaded to a website advertising sexual services for money.

A sentencing hearing at Cardiff Crown Court was told the victim was forced to have sex and commit “degrading acts” with men who paid money to Mountstephens and Thomas. The defendants controlled the victim by giving her prescription drugs and alcohol.

The couple also had sex with each other as the victim was abused while Thomas also engaged in sexual acts with men for money.

After the victim told members of her family what happened they initially didn’t believe her. While under investigation by the authorities Mountstephens attempted to change the dates the indecent images had been uploaded to the website in an attempt to conceal his involvement.

The defendants were arrested and denied the offences forcing the victim to undergo a trial.

But Mountstephens, of Rhodfa Crughywel, Trowbridge, and Thomas, of Mynachdy Road, Mynachdy, were both found guilty of controlling a child in relation to sexual exploitation. Mountstephens was also found guilty of three counts of possessing indecent images of a child and perverting the course of justice.

In a personal statement read out to the court the victim said: “I have been groomed. I didn’t truly understand or grasp what that meant until the trial when I listened to the questions and to the evidence I delivered….

I felt flattered by the attention Kelly and Richie were giving me. I enjoyed being treated like an adult. I spent a long time confused by what my role was in all of this.

I blamed myself – I thought I had contributed to what happened and wondered if I had encouraged things. People were telling me that it wasn’t my fault but I didn’t understand that.

Looking back now with maturity… I can see it for what it was. I felt stupid and silly that I couldn’t see it at the time. I realise that even though I thought I was grown up I was actually really naïve. The penny finally dropped during the trial.

The attention they gave me wasn’t because they liked me or because I was special – it was because they were manipulating me and using me for their own benefit….

“After what happened I developed exceptionally low self-worth. My self-esteem was non-existent. I was ashamed of what had happened and hated myself and my body.

This self-hate became very self-destructive. For the first year of the investigation I abused myself.

I drank alcohol every day, I used cannabis and pills to extreme.

I couldn’t cope and the alcohol and the drugs were a way of feeling numb – I didn’t have to feel anything. When I wanted to be able to feel again I would cut myself.

I didn’t understand the reason at the time but looking back it was a way of causing myself to feel something after the numbness of the alcohol and drugs. In the first year I lost a dramatic amount of weight. I couldn’t eat – I didn’t want to look after myself….

“I really struggled to sleep. I had terrible nightmares about what happened – they were vivid and took me back to what they made me do with the men.

When I slept I had nightmares and when I was awake I had flashbacks.

I couldn’t escape the thoughts of what had happened which is where the drink and drugs came in. It got so bad that during the first year I tried to end my life three times…

“The best way for me to describe how I felt in that first year is like a permanently shaken bottle of pop. I felt constantly tense and like I could explode at any time. There was a constant feeling of pressure building up.”

The victim said she was aware intimate pictures of her had been circulated online and described herself as “emotionally unavailable”.

She added that the guilty verdicts in the trial had left her feeling “validated” but the fear of not being believed was “consuming”.

She said: “Kelly and Richie have never admitted what they did. They have lied repeatedly. It made me scared no-one would believe me.”

The victim said she hopes she can learn to “love myself again” and said she wanted to share her story with other young people who have been exploited to reassure them. She also wrote a poem which was read out to the court.

Sentencing, Judge David Wynn Morgan said: “You suggested to this child she could expect a good life if she followed the path taken by you, Thomas, into the oldest profession.”

The judge said that sexual activity between the victim and Mountstephens and Thomas was done to “satisfy their own perverted sexual gratification” as well as to “show her what was required”.

He added: “You are both completely degenerate and as has been observed that which all degenerates lack is a sense of morality, right and wrong.

The victim was obliged to submit to penetrative sexual activity. You both had expectation of significant financial gain.”

The judge accused Mountstephens of smirking throughout the reading of the victim personal statement.

Mountstephens was sentenced to a total of eight years imprisonment and Thomas was sentenced to six and a half years imprisonment.

Shouts of: “Tramp, tramp, tramp” and: “You’re f****** dead” could be heard from the public gallery as the defendants went down to the cells.

Poem written by victim of Mountstephens and Thomas

Christmas is like Halloween. I’m haunted.

While the wind blow for the people around me it stands still for me.

While it sparkles bright for you it dims for me.

Trauma.

No-one ever likes to talk about trauma so I sit in a room with my mind as black as charcoal and I think: “It’s hard for you? Well, it’s hard for me too.”

So I put on that smile but never forever – just for a while.

They say you catch more flies with honey but you get yourself a bee sting first.

I stung last.

So now it’s your turn to cry and be shy to recall and stall to relive and revise every single day just like me. To call and call and bawl and bawl. But no-one can hear you till you fall and crawl and can’t breathe. But you will never be relieved or released never complete.

Innocent until proven guilty? Well guilty as charged.

I said Christmas will always be Halloween. But now not for me, for you – you’re haunted.